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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Honeymoon - The Food

**WARNING: This post will make you hungry!!

The food in Belize was unbelievably good. I consider myself a bit of a foodie. I'm obsessed with cooking, new recipes, learning new techniques, kitchen gadgets, Food Network and Top Chef. For those of you that know me (and have dined with me), you know that I have a very healthy appetite and am not afraid to eat my face off. My mom has been making fun of me about this for years...she's shocked at the quantities of food that I can eat. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be one of those people that barely ever eat and just lightly pick at their tiny salad, having 3 bites and they're full and never gain an ounce. Whatever, that's just not me. I eat. And in my opinion, a vacation just isn't a vacation without amazing food!

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting the food in Belize to be, but it was above and beyond anything I was prepared for. It was a mix between Thai, French and Mexican - my three absolute favorites. And was ALL seafood (mostly crab and lobster), of course. Culinary heaven, in my opinion. No wonder I my pants didn't fit when I got home!

Our first night in Belize, we took a water taxi to town and ate dinner at the Blue Water Grill (not the most original restaurant name; I've now been to 4 different Blue Water Grills). We started with some fresh shrimp ceviche and martinis. I had the spiny lobster dinner and Ryan had an unbelievable snook dish with plantains and curry. He definitely out-ordered me and I wanted his dish, so I knew we were going to have to come back so I could try that one.

On Christmas Eve, we walked down the beach from our resort to a little restaurant called Capricorn. It was an open air restaurant, right on the beach. Cozy and comfortable, with great views and amazing food. They set up a little romantic table for us out on the beach, lit by candlelight. We ate with our toes in the sand.

We split a plate of escargot for an appetizer, finishing every last drop by dipping the homemade crusty bread in the sauce. For dinner, I ordered a massive plate of chilled stone crab claws. (Thank you Mike and Erica for introducing me to this amazing dish.) They were the fresh catch, right out of the ocean that morning. Ryan ordered a seafood combo with stone crab, lobster and grouper. We were pretty much in heaven.

My plate before...

During...

And after.

Yum.

Christmas Day we walked up the beach to a little Thai restaurant called Rendezvous, where we had the best Pad Thai I've ever had. Ever. I mean it was unreal good. I really thought I made a good Pad Thai until I had this dish. Wow.

The next day we rode our bikes into town and had lunch at a little place right on the beach. It had sand floors and one giant menu written on a chalkboard in the other room. Apparently your order came with your own dog. This was ours. We nicknamed him Sandy. He really liked Ryan's foot.

Remember those spiny lobsters were caught on the fishing trip? Hello dinner! Check these babies out. We went to the restaurant in the resort next-door and got some butter to use to cook our lobster with. We ordered a side salad and a pasta side dish.

I prepared the meal and Ryan prepared the drinks. (Yes, I know I have something in my teeth, deal with it.)

Delish!

We also ventured up to the Mata Chica Resort for dinner at Mambo.

The appetizers were amazing! We had fresh snapper carpaccio and spring rolls. I had some kind of amazing curry shrimp dish for my entree, but apparently forgot to take a picture.

Mata Chica has their own water taxi to and from their restaurant. Again, I got to drive.

Portofino was another restaurant at a resort North of our resort. The drinks were great and the food sounded so promising...

Those are two giant spider crab claws, which were rather delicious. However, see those round lumps with sauce on them? Fried ball of fish with the richest sauce ever. Why?! Seafood is supposed to be light and healthy and fresh. This food was so heavy and thick and rich we both felt sick afterwards. Not good.

On our next to last night in Belize, we went back to town and back to the Blue Water Grill. I was determined to have that curry plantain dish again. Unfortunately, as our water taxi was supposed to arrive, there was a torrential downpour. I mean serious rain. We put on our rain gear, headed out to the dock and waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently Belizeans don't like the rain and the taxi had stopped running until the rain stopped. So we kept waiting. Eventually we made it into town, completely soaked from head to toe, but in good spirits and starving!

A couple of these helped take the edge off. We took a few minutes to contemplate what we wanted to order. So many choices... Hmmm...what to have?